Men's cross country team runs best race of the season

Under cloudy skies and a steady drizzle, the men's cross country team ran to a strong finish of 15th out of 46 teams from Divisions I, II, and III at the All-New England Championships Friday afternoon at Franklin Park. Providence (36 points) won the meet for the second year in a row, with three of its runners among the first four overall to cross the finish line. Brown (70), Dartmouth (128), UMass-Lowell (166), and Boston University (232) rounded out the top five in team scoring.

Tufts (522) finished sixth out of Division III teams, and junior co-captains Jon Rosen and Peter Bromka both considered it the team's best race of the season. In the fastest showing of the season, the top five Jumbo finishers all set personal records. Sophomore Nate Brigham led the way, staying right behind the top Division I athletes to finish with a sensational time of 25:01, good for 32nd place overall.

"For him to stay close like that indicates the kind of runner he's capable of being," Rosen said. "We need him to be a consistent front runner for us to do well." Bromka raced to a 95th place individual finish with a time of 25:58, followed by sophomore Neil Orfield at 113th overall and an impressive 26:08. Junior Ian Joseph and freshman Matt Lacey rounded out Tufts' top five, completing the course just one second apart at 140th and 142nd, respectively. Rosen and freshman Matt Cummings garnered the sixth and seventh spots on the team.

The fastest times of the year were the result of a fast course that was 80 meters shorter than normal, the cool weather conditions, and the intense competition.

Even with these beneficial conditions, there was, however, a facet of the race that impeded the speed of the squad. The smattering of three hundred runners competing at Franklin Park led to tight packs that made both separating from slower runners and passing extremely difficult. This factor had an unfortunate impact on the Jumbos as the third through seventh runners got off to a slow start and had trouble advancing as far as they could have through the swarm of runners.

"We were passing people the whole way," Rosen said. "It just wasn't quite enough."

The Jumbos did not reach the top ten finish that they achieved in the race last year but still finished in the top third of teams competing, a strong statement considering that the best schools from all three divisions competed in the meet. The Jumbos finished behind Keene St., Williams, MIT, Bates, and Bowdoin from within Division III, but they edged out the highly touted Coast Guard by 20 points, and also handily defeated Amherst, whom they had previously been unable to beat.

"It's a signal that we're moving up in the right direction," Jon Rosen asserted.

"Hopefully we'll use it as a stepping stone," Joseph added.

The team is still looking forward to the return of top form of sophomore Michael Don. In his second race back from injury, Don finished first for the Jumbos in the JV meet with a time of 26:25, which would have placed him on the heels of Joseph and Lacey in the varsity meet.

"We're hopeful he'll be ready to help out some time in the next month," Bromka said.

The team's next match is this Saturday at the James Early Invite at Westfield State.

"Next week we'll try to match up more head to head with certain teams that are there," Bromka said. "But in a big race, we just had to run for ourselves."

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